All articles by IPE staff – Page 18
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Features
The thinking pension revolutionary
Thought leadership is a well-worn term but one sure practitioner in the pension fund world is Keith Ambachtsheer, who has been voted by our readers as winner of this year’s IPE Gold Award for outstanding industry contribution.
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Features
Two for the price of one
Two complementary pay-as-you-go pension plans operating under one roof, Agirc and Arrco are managed by two pensions federations whose decision-making bodies are controlled by the company partners – Agirc and Arrco.
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Features
A touch of magic
To win an award of any type is recognition that you stick out from your peers and have achieved excellence. To gain the ultimate accolade of Best Pension Scheme in Europe means you have worked magic and your level of innovation has resulted in something extra special. That sums up KBC’s recent review of its investment strategy perfectly.
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Third man leading the pack
Gildi, Iceland’s third-largest pension scheme with €2.18bn under management, believes it deserves the IPE award for Iceland thanks to its successful portfolio management and performance.
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Features
Finding the right level
Founded in 1961, Inarcassa began life as the state-run pension fund for Italian Architects and Engineers.
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Features
A little bit more can go a long, long way
Sweden’s public sector AP3 scheme, one of the Swedish government’s four state buffer funds, has had a bit of a rough ride recently. After achieving the lofty heights of 17.7% returns for what it must have considered a stable portfolio at the time, last year’s 9.5% has led to a rethink that has seen AP3 once again walk away with a couple of IPE’s renowned European pensions awards – not least the one featured here as Sweden’s best scheme.
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Features
Balancing life and pensions
Starting with a blank canvas back in 2003, the creation of the Bank of Ireland’s LifeBalance product was one of three components of the bank’s new integrated group pensions strategy that was developed by the group pensions department. The three components are governance, benefits and fund structures.
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Features
Playing the away game
Oslo Pensjonsforsikring is Norway’s largest local authority pension scheme. Named after the city it represents and with assets of €4.4bn, it manages and provides pensions income and benefits for some 30,000 active members, 23,000 deferred members and almost 56,000 pensioners who work or have worked in the Norwegian capital’s public sector.
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Features
A single manager approach but wide net to cast
Investing in hedge funds requires specific skills and careful monitoring. Pension schemes usually use hedge funds to ensure a robust diversification and the safest and perhaps easiest method of investing in this increasingly common alternative is through funds of funds. But for Ilmarinen, Finland’s €23bn multi-employer scheme, which has 3% or €750m of its overall portfolio in hedge funds, that is no longer enough.
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Features
Taking on the alternatives
IPE asked three pension services – in Croatia, Sweden and the Netherlands – the same question: ‘What is your attitude to alternative investments?’ Here are their answers:
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Features
All your eggs in one basket
The small but innovative €566m Bosch hybrid group pension scheme remains the only occupational pension fund in Germany to apply changes to accounting practices introduced in 2005 by the International Financial Reporting Standards board which affect the way companies view their pensions.
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Features
One step ahead of the law
Switzerland’s €2bn ABB Pension Fund is no slave to regulation and even claims the way it interprets pensions law in the rich Alpine state has enhanced the way the regulations have evolved there.
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Features
Excellence across the board
This year’s IPE awards again sees a bumper crop of entries at an excellent standard.
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Features
Reshaped returns help to unscramble risk puzzle
The Best Finnish Pension Fund in this year’s IPE Awards is VR Pension Fund (Division B), one of a range of pension plans for employees of Finnish Railways. VRPF has won the accolade for its achievements in efficiently reshaping the return distribution of its portfolio, as well as minimising asset/liability ...
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Features
Fund looks into the future and sees Asia
Few pension schemes can afford to sell off their equity holdings and pursue a strategy that excludes this major asset class. The UK’s pharmacist and drugstore group, Boots, famously did it a few years back, but the sensationalist media failed to mention that theirs was a very mature scheme that ...
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Features
Beta management keeps market risk in check
Market risk management is one of the most important issues facing European pension funds today. APK, the Austrian multi-employer pension fund, has strong convictions about the importance of market risk management.
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Features
Let the investments do the driving...
Some take a much more fundamental approach than others. Certainly, Denmark’s huge €49.9bn public sector fund, ATP, took the bull by the horns some years back and implemented far-reaching changes to its constitution that have given it an award-winning structure.
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Features
Smooth sailing on the voyage from DB to DC
The world-renowned financial information and reporting company Reuters has been steadily shifting its pensions arrangements globally to a clear defined contribution structure.
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Features
Systematic evaluation finds right formula for commodities
Bayerische Versorgungskammer, the Bavarian pension fund for professional groups, has shown that a structured approach towards setting up a commodities portfolio can result in setting mandates and appointing managers that offer the best possible prospects of return and diversification, and for this achievement has been named Best Commodities Investor.
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Features
Modest launch breaks the mould and changes the law
Changing investment attitudes and habits is not an easy task, especially within a short time frame of six months. But with innovation, courage and a bit of risk-taking, the Premium Mandatory Pension Fund of Hungary has achieved the near-impossible.
